


Voices in the sandstorm: a Prologue

by letterando



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is an Ilvermorny alumni, Cecil Headcanons, Gen, Headcanon, Ilvermorny, Kevin Headcanons, Night Vale Headcanon, Outside Night Vale, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Pre-Strex Kevin, The Voice of Night Vale, Thistle is a ghoul, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 15:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterando/pseuds/letterando
Summary: Ilvermorny's Science Department team of geographers has been conducting experiments on the barrier around a certain route in the desert to finally write a name on the blank space in the map. All attempts have since resulted in failure. Until Carlos has to flee from a filthy, yellow-clad Thistle man-Thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This file has been sitting in my FF folder for nearly one year so I decided to trim the grammar and turn Salem Institute into Ilvermorny and Muggle into No-maj.
> 
> I am astounded at how confusing my own notes are about this project. It seems like I had many ideas for this. I'm buried up to my neck in assignments now so please don't expect further chapters.
> 
> The writing style in this is weird partially because of Night Vale and partially because I have recently read Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor's "Dust", and she writes in an extremely peculiar and fascinating way. Consequently, this was also a writing experiment so please bear with me.
> 
> Any criticism and comments are greatly appreciated, but please remember that this is a dropped project of mine. Thank you in advance for your understanding.
> 
> Unbetaed.

Carlos was feeling hysterical with both panic and enthusiasm.

He couldn’t believe it.

On the one hand, this city, this utterly madness-inducing city, resistant to the most powerful revealing-spells in the world, had bounced off a last conjoined scan by a team of veteran geographers for the umpteenth time.

The barrier, whatever it was, could not be breached by spell, astral magic, divination, Patronuses, and even Magical Creatures, let alone by Apparating witches and wizards. It was so utterly fascinating that Carlos had to stop himself, several times, from squealing out loud in front of everybody at the meetings (he did squeal out loud as soon as he was alone).

On the other hand, though, Carlos couldn’t believe the absurdity of Ilvermorny’s policy. “Exceedingly low probability of success”, “unnecessary risks for the researchers involved”, “lacking specific qualifications and credentials”, “highly likely that volatile unconscious Divination episodes may be caused by the entity’s magical aura”. _Hijos de-_

Carlos was sure, his dreams weren’t the product of the aftereffect of on-field research. He had them in El Paso too, and that was too far for any subconscious barrier in the world. But it was no use arguing further with Professor Franklin and her minions in the Science Department. His ex-colleagues were quick to ignore his letters and firecalls, too. He would not be backed by Ilvermorny’s funds for a magical vehicle? Fine. Carlos would get in with a _maltida_  No-maj car.

Little he knew. He was going need that car sooner rather than later. Sooner than his luggage had been done and his panic had receded. Sooner than the blood-curling nightmare he had en-route.

Translucent-yellow nails. Dirty, filthy-dirty clothes. A logo: “Thistle”. He stood and walked like his limbs weren’t limbs, but chunks of meat. And meat he ate. No, he _was_ eating. No, he was _devouring_. Out, from a horizontal human-shape that Carlos refused, categorically refused to focus on nor to forget. Crimson, pulsating vines attempted to shield the…the Thing, when Carlos threw a Confundus without thinking twice.

Bad idea.

Very Bad idea.

In a gritty parking box next to an old, creaky house in El Paso, Carlos’ _maltida_  No-maj car was ready, the keys were not in, but the engine was roaring, uselessly intimating its owner to get in as fast as he could. Carlos didn’t notice then, but his luggage was on the back seats. His luggage, his kitchen appliances, his linens, all the contents of his wardrobes and closets were, actually, on the back seats.

The Thing must had followed Carlos via his Apparition trail because he was standing in front of the windowless wall of an illegal parking box outside of town. No more Apparating then. It was only a matter of getting the Thing away from his _abuela_. Or just to get the Thing the _puta mierda_ off of his scent and forget the whole thing. _Abuela_ couldn’t know, could never know what he had done.

Because the dead returns.

.

.

.

.

.

The car drove on as he slept. That was the only explanation.

Even Carlos’ temperamental magic couldn’t achieve such a feat while he was unconscious. The occasional sleeping prophecy in his childhood days? Normal. The occasional levitating object during his teenage experiments with his body? Even more normal.

His magic did not, because it _could_ not, drive _maltidas_  No-maj cars by itself when he was out like a light. _Así_ , the car was posing as a No-maj car and was secretly magical. It was probably inhabited by a not-overly-friendly but definitely-lonely spirit that had been desperate to be bought by a member of the wizarding community.

That was the only possible explanation. That was the only explanation Carlos would accept in this _maltida_ crazy situation.

That, and only _that_ must be why he drove on for 45 hours and counting, not ever stopping, elapsing periodically in fitful naps (with one terrifying nightmare about a gigantic eye was in the place where the sun was supposed to be), not feeling hunger, not feeling thirst, not feeling pain, not feeling fear.

That was crazy odd, reflected Carlos.

This magic, this compelling aura, didn’t feel part of the usual wizarding community shenanigan, it was something different, more primal, more powerful and more forceful.

When he looked around himself, after probably his fifth nap, he was driving in the desert. Or, well, the car was advancing in the desert was probably a more apt description. He had given up on handling the steering wheel hours before.

It should have been hot and stuffy inside the car, as all the windows were rolled up as far as they could go and had been so since the beginning of their journey, but Carlos felt the same stale chill on his skin that he had felt since he locked eyes with that Thing. The man with the Thistle logo. The Thistle man-Thing.

As the advertisement for an unnamed Town too-joyfully bid them welcome, the car’s wheel steered abruptly to the right before straightening itself, but not before Carlos’ torso was wrenched to the right until his vision swam.

And there he saw him.

A dirty-filthy yellow polo “Thistle” skeleton. Its contours wavering in the visionary spells of the sandy territory and the heat.

Powerful Magical Beings haunted these desert Kanyons, everybody and their _abuela_ knew that. Crimson-bloody vines wrapped and unwrapped around the Thistle man as he slipped Carlos’ into peripheral vision. Carlos turned back to follow him with his gaze, thundering heart and all, but he was gone.

Only the sandy, dark red earth and the advertising signs. It was his fear playing tricks on him.

With a sigh, Carlos turned around.

There was a man in the passenger’s seat.

Maybe Carlos was past its breaking point because the scream died in his throat and he only had to inhale and exhale too quickly a few times, making himself staring resolutely at the steering wheel, his mind going a mile a minute and weirdly silent at the same time.

When he turned to the right, the man was still there. He looked on the wrong side of 30, he was tanned, not a Latino shade, but not white either, unlike his hair, which rose in one proud, soft-looking quiff, stark snowy. His eyes were purple-ish, or maybe just a weird brown, mingled with red. He wore furry trousers (Merlin’s balls), a translucent salmon button down and velvety purple vest. Carlos would have been reassured by the man’s warm, forgiving smile if it wasn’t for the _mierdosisimo_ eye of his previous dream, tattooed on the man’s forehead in purple-no, white?, no, translucent-purple ink.

“Hello-“

“Let’s cut the formalities.”

That wasn’t Carlos’ voice. It wasn’t even the man’s voice. It came from behind.

That was when Carlos discovered that most of his possessions had migrated across states on the back of his car without him knowing. Between piles of clothes and the occasional pan, but without sitting on any item, was a bleeding, brightly-clad man.

Carlos would have put his whole weight to the brake and get the _puta mierda_ out of there if it wasn’t that this second man was the spitting image of the first. He wore orange, dust-and-blood covered trousers, a yellow button and a gold-embroidered, orange vest, with a golden cravat. The colors seemed to have seeped into his skin, for it carried a yellowish overtone over its olive hue, and most notably, he was bleeding from his scrutinizing grinning mouth and from a small curved cut on his forehead, perched just above nothingness-black eyes.

Carlos was about to ask who they were and how did they Apparate without him feeling any change in the surrounding magic, and maybe why Carlos still felt nothing apart from a growing anxiety about the future stability of his very own Self.

But the first man was faster, and scoffed, looking behind his shoulder without quite turning around.

“So rude.”

“I don’t care.” Sing-songed the second. “Not when it’s chasing him so obsessively. It’s more resilient than I thought, my pets couldn’t even scratch it.”

The first man tsk-ed in annoyance, his pout puffing his rosy lips a bit.

“Do you know what Thistle is?” Carlos finally asked, looking between them in turn, to keep them in his sight as long as possible, suspicious of whatever such weird people?, creatures?, begins? were up to. Futile intention.

As he blinked, rotating his head, the back guy was sitting on the passenger’s seat, smiling sweetly at Carlos. _Madre en cielo_ , Carlos was grateful that the man was keeping his limbs to himself, as he noticed that the man’s nails were covered in blood. A bloody drop was lazily descending from his earlobe too.

“No time for that. So! Carlos! Don’t you look like such a dashing specimen!” Behind them, the purple man  scoffed again.

“I’ll make it as short and simple as I can under the circumstance: Do you believe in a Smiling God?”

…

…

…

“Que?” was Carlos’ brain only response.

“Mh, you’re right, there’s no time for that either.” Grinned the man. “Up the road, the simple, smiling town of Desert Bluffs lies. You should seek shelter in Desert Bluffs! There you will be protected all your life by the Smiling God. Life jumps up and down. Yours is on the ground now, bleeding, pitiful, trying to reach its wounds to heal them with its parched, bleeding tentacle. But in Desert Bluffs, the Smiling God will welcome you in its soul and never let you go, your life will _never_ fall again, _never_ , until you are old, creaking, crawling, quietly, and _smiling_.”

The man’s voice had a weird, calming effect on Carlos, but as he had been weirdly calm for the whole ride, he didn’t feel much difference. The gurgling underground anxiety for his wholeness was still there.

A life without ups and downs was like brewing a rare potion successfully at the first try, or like writing the transcript of an Inuit family ritual in Ancient Runes correctly from the first to the last chanted noise. It smelled rottingly fishy. It also was extremely comforting though. He needed to run, he wanted to be safe, away from everything, away from pain and loss, and possibly a very, very bloody end.

But before Carlos could answer, he blinked and the purple man was sitting beside him again, scowling.

“Don’t listen to Kevin, that wretched man. Here, at the end of Route 800, is Night Vale. You’ll, well, I don’t know if you’ll _like_ it exactly, but it’s a loveable city, so welcoming with tourists, a bit wary of Outsiders, but I’m sure in time you won’t feel the need to flee in the night anymore. There are so many good people there, Carlos, we pride ourselves in being resilient to all bumps in the night, to the alleged existence of mountains, to Valentine’s Day and to most of the mysteries that the Void likes to inflict on us, but we face them all as a community!” the man’s voice lost its smoothness word by word so that at the end it’s shaking, his lower lip quivering as if repressing a sob.

“Shush, Cecil, you can’t promise him the comforts I can provide him.” Kevin decided to proceed from the back seat. “Did I mention that the Smiling God can make all your problems disappear by making you forget all the painful memories?”

To that, Carlos couldn’t help but turn around, ignoring Cecil’s badly muffled whimper.

“Oh _yes_.” The obsidian eyes didn’t smile but something in them twinkled, unwavering, disrobing Carlos’ soul. “You can choose all the good memories you want to keep, and the Smiling God will keep all your bad ones. He will take such good care of them that they will be less scary and painful, so you can have them all back, and be so happy you won’t want stop smiling in gratitude. Everybody in Desert Bluffs is the same, there are even some who were the same as you, runaways from agony and torture, and are now happier than they could have ever hoped to be. I can show you Carlos. I can show you what contentedness looks, sounds and smells like. Cecil, on the other hand…” Another whimper from beside Carlos.

“Night Vale’s air is polluted with the agonizing, violent screams of horror of its inhabitants, you know? Their Void pours only malice and danger, and everybody there must fight or run for their lives. Cecil knows how many days do Night Valeans go with a smile on their faces, mh?, right?, Cecil?” sing-songed Kevin, tiling his grinning, bleeding face at the other man.

“No one.” Carlos turned at the fierce note in the man’s voice. “Not a single day, alright? But we are strong, we fight and run, as you said. We can’t protect you Carlos, like Desert Bluffeans do, but we can fight by your side, spur you on along your own battles, heave a sigh of relief as the furniture of life falls back into place all around us at the end of the battle.”

Cecil. What a peculiar man. He looked so afraid for Carlos, so uncertain of the future, so unlike Kevin, who sat with relaxed, bloody hands on his bloody trousers. His perpetual grin emanating placid tranquility, although one of his eyebrows twitched now and then.

“There’s no more time. I’m taking us to Bluffs.” Sentenced Kevin.

“Don’t be ridiculous Kevin, we decided it would be his choice, the road won’t open for him.”

“Not if I don’t force it open.”

“He will-“

“Too late.” Said Kevin, his note completely void of emotion, as he was turned to the side. Carlos and Cecil craned their necks to see, but only Cecil muttered a curse and turned with pleading eyes.

“Please, Carlos.”

“I want to run away.” Carlos heard himself said.

Why did he say it, he didn’t mean to say out loud.

“I want to run away from everything, leave it all behind, _maltidos todos_. And then I want to be strong enough to fight back and maybe, maybe, to be forgiven, and then to find some, tiny maybe, a bit, just a little piece of happiness. Alone, or maybe with someone, I don’t know, I just-“

STOP! He cried at his tongue. No more. _Por favor_.

“You want to forget.” Concluded Kevin gleefully, to which Carlos could only pathetically nod, struggling to keep his lips shut.

“I can do it.” This time it was Kevin’s turn to scoff, as Cecil said the words.

Carlos looked up. Cecil’s eyes palpitated with something more alive than life.

Outside the still running car, the sky had turned brown and black, as a great sandstorm cloud rose from nothing and advanced towards them. Or maybe they advanced towards it? Carlos could understand nothing but Cecil’s voice.

“I can.” He repeat, scowling at Kevin. “For a small while, though.” He turned to give Carlos an apologizing pout. “The Void makes some things gnaw their way out of Night Valeans, entities awaken, some re-awaken. The Smiling God is a shut seal, the Void is a gaping wound. You will, eventually, be a version of yourself more ancient than the extent of your existence, with all your fears and horrors to accompany you.”

“But I will be strong enough to live with them?” pressed Carlos.

“That, dear sweet Carlos,” purred Cecil “is up to you.”

A moment’s silence, in which Carlos absurdly thought that Cecil was about to grab his hands and beg him, and Kevin to grip his neck from behind his seat, and choke him, until he agreed to one of them, or suffocate.

“Alright, _sì_.”

“ _Sì_ to what?” They resounded in unison, helpful and grinning, on the brink of tears and triumphant.

“I’ll go to Night Vale.”

As the words left his lips, they entered the sandstorm and the dust flew in the car from invisible holes, so big they must have been, as if the window panes were simply not there. Cecil became a tear in the dust and an obsidian eye glimpsed from Carlos’ peripheral vision, then at the same time Carlos became aware that Cecil’s hands were letting go of his, and that their hands had been joined for quite a while, when he felt a sharp pain down his neck to his ear and hairs.

He hissed, completely letting go of Cecil’s now ephemeral grasp, to touch the pain. He didn’t understand, what could have cut him in a sandstorm?

He drew back his hand. It was covered in blood. Flabbergasted, Carlos looked around, the sand was receding, nobody living was there.

Looking ahead of the moving car, in the sky, a gigantic purple eye replaced the desert sun, its pupil as carbon as Carlos’ cowering soul.

Only the eye existed, nothing else.

He was in the eye of the storm.

A few meters ahead, the closing side of the sand tornado swept him and the car, he raised his arms uselessly as sand invaded the vehicle again, pouring into his nostrils, his ears, his mouth, his eyes.

.

.

.

.

The car swerved desperately before he clutched the wheel tightly with both hands and gently steered it back in the middle of the straight, sloping road.

Where was he? What was this place? The land looked unforgiving but felt oddly welcoming. Dark red earth was interrupted here and there by oddly-shaped cactuses. Wait, how did he know they were cactuses? What _was_ a cactus?

The car started to slow down before he instinctively pushed his foot on a pedal, then gained speed again. What was he even _doing_?

Static. A voice. He looked down towards the source of the noise. A narrow rectangular screen, showed pixel letters W.T.N.V.

_A friendly desert community where the sun is hot,_

He was sweating, pearls of perspiration trickling down his temples, his nape, his neck, his chest, his back. Then he realized that the windows were up, he rolled his window down and breathed in the dry, hot air, as it tickled his nostrils and his tears. His tears. Why was he crying?

He sobbed his hysteria towards the steering wheel, which he grasped almost painfully.

_-the moon is beautiful,_

There was a hazy darkness in the sky, now that he heaved a panicked breath and looked up. The sky was cloud-less, but its color, its color was just. Different. Eerie even. He passed a road sign.

Route 800.

At least now he knew where he was! As for how he came there, or who/what he was, though..

“¡ _Mierda_!” He exclaimed, finding his throat hoarse, not understanding a thing of what was going on. He sobbed again in desperation and changed gears, speeding up.

- _and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep._

…

Wait.

What?

Wait wait wait.

Too late. The sand storm appeared from nowhere. Well, not exactly from no-where. It rose from the ground just a dozen meters in front of the car, inevitable. But something screamed ‘weird’, screamed ‘danger’, screamed ‘run!’.

Too late. He swerved, the tires screeched, the voice hummed along the musical crescendo.

Welcome to Night Vale.


End file.
